Mother's Duty
by Andromeda Prime
Summary: AU TF:Prime. On Cybertron, each sparkling was cherished and loved by both creators. Raising a hand in anger against one was unfathomable. On Earth, however, Optimus finds that it is not the case. Rated T for language, past mechpreg, and possible triggers including abuse. Will be a two-shot. Ties into same universe as "Amnesiac". COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

"Romy likes my harmonica better, Miko. It's softer and smoother."

"She'll convert from being a country girl to a metalhead like me when she hears my tunes."

Jack patted a curious Andromeda on her servo and looked at Raf, who nodded and turned towards the entrance to the hallway, shouting at the top of his lungs, "OPTIMUS!"

Miko shouted "Hey!" at the same time both Andromeda flinched and whimpered at the loud noise and that Optimus stepped from the shadows of the corridor. The Prime only had to look at the scene, Miko in the corner with her speakers plugged into the wall and into the guitar she held, Raf, Jack, and Andromeda looking at him expectantly, to discern what was going on. He bent down and reached over to the speakers, pulling the plug from the wall and silencing the static and preventing the burst eardrums and audios that would have followed.

"No fair," Miko pouted. "She's already a month and a week and I haven't showed her any Slash Monkey yet."

The Prime picked up the cooing infant from her sitting position on the floor, cradling her in his arms and kissing her cheekplate, following that up with a few playful raspberries. Optimus grinned at Andromeda's happy squeals and whispered his love to her over their creator/creation bond when she nuzzled his faceplate with her own. "I don't think it best at this point in time to blow out her audios, Miko. In fact, just don't do it."

"But how else will she gain an appreciation for Earth music?"

"By listening to actual music," Jack responded dryly, bracing himself for the verbal assaults that the foreign-exchange student would unleash on him.

Optimus only chuckled to himself as he walked back to his quarters, looking down at the sparkling looking around at her surroundings as if it were the first time in the corridor (in reality it was her umpteenth time). "I leave you in their care for one second, and Miko is already trying to short-circuit your audios."

_Chirr-click-warble-click. _Beautiful blue orbs mirroring his own stared up at him.

"Promise me you will never become like Miko. We all care for her, but I do not think I could handle another sentient being, human or Cybertronian, exactly like her."

_Chirp!_ Andromeda smiled up at her carrier and waved a servo at him.

"I will interpret that as a "yes" on your behalf."

.-.-.

After leaving Andromeda in the care of Arcee and Bumblebee, Optimus and Bulkhead headed out for their patrol shift. Optimus's first one since the birth of his little one. Andromeda had given a few confused chirps and clicks, squirming in her adoptive big brother's grasp and crying when Optimus turned his back to her and left the ex-storage-room-turned-playroom.

Optimus pacified that by soothing the distressed femmeling over their bond, and left the link open so whenever he felt Andromeda about to cry he could just calm her down as he and the Wrecker drove through the mostly quiet, early evening streets of Jasper. On a private communications link he and Bulkhead kept conversation going alongside keeping an optic out for any Decepticon activity.

The Wrecker, like the others at the base, could not stop making Andromeda the topic of their discussions.

::-so I took the shiny rock that she likes and put it under a cup, shuffled that cup around with two other cups that looked the same, and what did she do?::

The Prime smiled internally as they both stopped at a four-way crossing, watching the light turn from yellow to red. Though Jasper was a small town with an equally small population, he noticed that the lights took much time to change their colors, and wondered if it were the same for every stoplight in this country. ::I do not know, Bulkhead. What did Andromeda do?::

::She reached out and tapped cup to her left, and lo-and-behold, her rock was under there!::

::I'm glad to see that she is coming along well also where her cognitive skills are concerned::

::I was shocked. Never seen a sparkling that young able to tell what was the correct cup. We played like that a few more times and she got it right every time except for one. But that was my fault, I switched the cups too fast on that part::

::Did she react adversely when she picked the wrong container?::

::Nah, she just looked surprised::

The semi and the green truck fell into a comfortable silence as they both "people-watched", as the kids had put it once. Watching the civilians go about on a regular Thursday afternoon. Teenagers around Jack and Miko's age in small groups and in pairs, walking the sidewalks hand in hand without any cares in the world.

How Optimus longed for a day of his youth back on Cybertron. Just one day given to him, that was all. Where he could walk under the numerous stars dotting the night sky and in the glow of the buildings of Iacon, when he knew or cared little of the politics of the so-called Golden Age.

A small gaggle of loud and talkative children about Rafael's age entered into a nearby establishment Jack had told him was called an ice-cream shop. An elderly couple, the woman using what was called a "cane" walked hand in hand.

His newly discovered sentimental side thought it was very cute.

Optimus adjusted his sideview mirrors to peer at the entrance to the supermarket at the same time the doors opened, allowing a tall human female to exit with her arms full of bags. What immediately struck the Prime about the woman was her seeming lack of care for her external hygenie. Her hair, long and a shade of brown lighter than Rafael's, was messy and unkempt. The long white shirt she wore bore many unsightly stains, ranging from small and red to large and a shade of yellow mixed with green. The dark grey ankle-length skirt that swooshed around her legs with each step she took was tattered at the bottom edges. Optimus noted that the shoes she wore were ripping, as each time she set her foot on the sidewalk a large gash appeared in fake leather.

The Prime was stunned, however, at the horde of screaming children that followed her. All messy, dirty, one of the little males (he wasn't sure, as he then saw that the boy had dirty long and blond locks that fell halfway down his back) had his shirt completely off. One of the taller, and older children he felt he could safely assume, was awkwardly holding a human sparkling that couldn't have been older than Andromeda.

"Mommy, did you get the gummies that I wanted?!"

"Mommy, Blake's hittin me!"

"Mama, can we ge' i'e cwem?!"

"Mom," the taller child (he discerned from the vocal tone that it was a girl) called in disgust over the human infant's loud screams, "Chanel's dirty again!"

Even the ferocity of war did nothing to prepare Optimus for the scene that unfolded in his rearview mirrors. Everyone that was outside and enjoying an early evening stroll stopped and stared as the woman turned around and all but kicked one of the littler ones from his place near her leg. "Will you drips stop pestering me?!"

The boy she had kicked began squalling, and only made the infant's cries that much louder. The other kids began whimpering as the woman only continued her rant, "You runts cost me money that could go towards me and your dad. But NO, he had to make me go through with it. With each of you. He and his upbringing can go to hell."

"Mom-" the oldest child (Optimus guessed she was about twelve) piped up, but her words were cut short when the woman stepped forward and dropped some of the bags as she raised a hand and slapped it across the girls face. The girl's chin snapped against her shoulder, her hair flying, and something told the Prime that this was a daily occurrence. She only grit her teeth and turned her head to face her mother, stared back emotionlessly into her mother's hateful eyes, not flinching when the woman poked her in the chest and listening to the taller woman hiss, "You're the one I regret the most, you little slut. Sixteen. I was only four years older than you. If I'd gotten rid of you I wouldn't have had the rest of you shits. I should have just shoved a hanger up there and gotten rid of you and gone on to Hollywood, become an actress. Imagine that." A sick smile crossed the woman's face, a smile that sent shivers through the semi's frame. "Your momma, a star, a celebrity, rolling in money and partying every night with the likes of George Clooney and Hugh Jackman."

Then the woman turned to the still and fearful kids staring up at her. Her eyes flickered down to the bags she had dropped on the sidewalk, an ugly expression marring her face again. "Well! Don't stand there like scared dogs! Get that up, fuckers. Costing me more money and my sweet time."

"But momma-"

"Too heavy," the shirtless child said as he struggled to pick up a bag that contained an open egg carton with half the eggs shattered and two squashed loaves of bread.

The mother groaned in disgust and only began to walk her way, screaming behind her, "Either you all pick up those bags or don't bother coming home, just like your daddy did! I won't have anything left to feed you anyway!"

The seven children, including the now-whimpering infant, only stood in near-silence, either oblivious to or ignoring the looks they were getting from the rest of Jasper's civilians. Most of the people outside had either stepped back or into establishments to watch from afar. The eldest girl looked at the next oldest kid, a silent girl who looked about eight, and quietly handed the little infant to her. She murmured in low tones to the other four children as she split up the spilled goods into small loads they could carry, stuffing the salvageable goods into two bags, one inside the other, and held onto it as she led the other kids towards home.

::Um, Optimus?::

The semi tore his attention from the human children to see that the light had turned green. He adjusted his mirrors to see if they were there, but they were now out of sight

.-.-.

On Cybertron, each and every sparkling was a cause for celebration, given that sparklings were so rare. Even in the onset of the Golden Age, when prosperity and education reigned, Cybertronian young were not a daily occurrence. Since Cybertronians lived for almost eternity many of them felt no rush to procreate. The most the population of his now-dead home planet had ever reached was just shy of two million.

Each sparkling was treasured, spoiled, given the best of everything and all the love that their creators could bestow upon them.

So when the shift was over and he and Bulkhead returned back to base, Optimus sprinted for the playroom where he found Miko, Jack, and Rafael in their night clothes and sleeping bags, Arcee sitting next to them, and Bumblebee playing with a sleepy Andromeda as the projector beamed _WALL-E _onto the wall in front of them. Bumblebee gave a startled beep when the Prime swooped in and grabbed the little femme, clutching a shell-shocked Andromeda to his chassis plates.

"Optimus?" Arcee called to the Prime, only to be ignored as the semi headed for a darker corner of the play room and sat against the wall, clutching a cooing and squirming Andromeda and singing some sort of foreign lullaby to her. She caught Bulkhead entering the room out of the corner of her optics and instantly opened up a private communications link with the Wrecker ::Bulkhead, what's with Optimus?::

::First, where is he?::

::Corner:: the motorcycle quickly gestured with her helm. The monster truck looked and an expression of relief passed over his faceplates when he saw Optimus seated with Andromeda at his chassis, feeding from a line as he quietly sang her into recharge.

::What happened?::

::He saw something on our patrol that he didn't like::

::Which was?::

::Arcee…did your creators ever…I don't know…hit you, or anything?::

::Only twice when I needed disciplining. Why?::

::Bumblebee:: Bulkhead expanded the link to include the yellow scout, who started and looked at the other mech with wide blue optics ::were you ever abused as a sparkling?::

The yellow muscle car's optics took on a quizzical look, but he answered the Wrecker's question with a shake of his helm.

::Why the sudden interest in our childhoods, Bulk?::

::I think I'd rather let Optimus tell you himself::

.-.-.

**I certainly hope this doesn't trigger anyone or offend anyone. If it did, I am sincerely sorry.**

**This will be a twoshot.**

**Oh, and just to affirm, this is NOT the immediate sequel to "Amnesiac" that I had mentioned in the last author's note. This does tie into the same universe, however.**


	2. Chapter 2

Optimus held the recharging little one to his chassis, his optics staring at some dark empty spot on the floor in front of him and his spark twisting into itself and wanting to explode with all the emotions that were currently going through his entire frame. He instinctively whispered a hushed, "Shh, don't panic my daughter," when Andromeda stirred in her sleep and whimpered at the emotions she sensed in her carrier's spark.

He could never, _never_, imagine raising a servo against his little femme. Each of that woman's movements echoed in his processor over and over again, making him flinch each time she kicked that boy, slapped her daughter, just moved in general. He had never known any carrier on Cybertron to behave in such a manner towards their offspring. And the carriers of the three human children they took care of…did they?

_Did they?!_

"Optimus?"

The Prime turned his helm to look at his left and saw Arcee kneeling next to him, a servo on his lower arm, and Bulkhead and Bumblebee standing behind the femme. A shift in his glance upward and he saw the Jack, Miko, and Raf staring at him from their sleeping bags with apprehensive gazes.

"Optimus, what happened?"

"I told them they're better off asking you Boss."

_Beep?_

Andromeda stirred again and yawned, her optics briefly opening and showing bright blue, before they shut closed again. Her wing stubs flicked and she curled her tiny servos into fists, curling her frame into her carrier's warm and loving embrace. The warmth and rhythm of his sparkbeats lulled her into deeper sleep and gave her peace and security that no other being in the universe ever could.

"I…I could never imagine doing such a thing to such an innocent being."

"I'm sorry?"

"Arcee, I was witness to a human carrier maltreating her human sparklings."

Blunt and to the point. And it made the other three bots widen their optics in shock. Jack, Miko, and Raf merely shared a look between the three of them.

"Maltreating as in how?"

"Maltreating as in hitting the children around, slapping and kicking them, when they weren't doing anything that could be considered wrong and disobedient. Labeling them as useless and other names that were incredibly derogatory and that I would be stunned if Andromeda knew them at their age."

"How bad?"

This time Bulkhead answered the motorbike femme, replying, "She kicked one of the kids in the face and slapped another one across the face. Then she started telling that one that she should have just done something with a hanger and gone to become a movie star."

"Wait."

Everyone looked at Rafael, who had piped up and was now sitting straight on his sleeping bag dotted with atoms and scientific equations, looking at them with curious brown eyes while reaching for his overnight bag. "How did that kid look like? The one that the mom slapped? Was it a girl?"

"Yeah, it was a girl," Bulkhead affirmed, watching Raf's movements with perceptive optics.

"What color hair-"

"Why do you have the yearbook?" Miko cut in, looking derisively at the glossy cover plastered with Jasper Junior-Senior High School's mascot.

"Oh, I brought it to show Jack that picture I found of him making a cameo in the cheerleaders' page."

Jack choked on his Sprite and Miko slapped him on the back, allowing Raf to flip through the pages as he asked again, "What did the girl look like?"

"Um…" Bulkhead looked helplessly at Arcee and Bumblebee, but Optimus came to his rescue after his few moments of silence and gently stroking Andromeda's helm. The Prime looked in the direction of the tech-savvy boy with dimmed optics, replying, "She was very thin, like Miko. Her hair was a shade of brown just lighter than yours, Rafael…she looked like a miniature version of her mother."

His mind drew a small parallel. Andromeda looked like a miniature version of him.

Raf turned the pages in the yearbook furiously, his eyebrows furrowing as he concentrated on each and every face, before his eyes widened and he stood up, walking over to the Prime and holding up his yearbook with his right index finger pointing at a girl in the last row, two pictures from the left. "Is this her?"

There, in color, was the girl. Andrea Miller, the caption under her photo read.

Andrea. Andromeda.

Andrea stared back at the Autobot Commander with the same emotionless hazel eyes that she had stared back at her mother with, as she listened and took and put up with the abuse that she no doubt had endured since her birth, her light brown hair in a disarray of sorts, the deep pink polo shirt she wore a few sizes too large for her small frame.

"She's part of the Millers. They're…not exactly welcomed here in Jasper, actually," Raf's voice broke through his processor's haze. Optimus lifted his optics to look at the boy as he continued, "Even the kids in kinder know to stay away from the Millers. My little sister Pilar has one of the boys in her class. I think his name is Blake or something"

"Optimus," Jack stood up and walked over to stand next to Raf, "kinda like how Scraplets are a pest to you Cybertronians, the Millers…well, the mom mostly, are pests to Jasper. They're the part of Jasper we don't really acknowledge and talk about."

"What happened to them? Why are they a nuisance?"

"As far as I've been told," Jack breathed, searching his brain for every bit of gossip he had heard around town and every bit of information his mother had ever told him, "the dad of the younger kids, except the older one, ran out on the mom when they were living somewhere else. The mom…Raf, do you know her name?"

Raf shook his head in the negative, but then Miko piped up from her sleeping bag, "Her name's Olive! I heard one of the kids call the mom that name once."

Olive. Optimus. Less of a parallel, but still there.

"Well, Olive was supposedly already mean to the kids, but she got even meaner when the dad left and she started blaming his absence on them, and she moved them here to Jasper."

"Jasper," Raf echoed listlessly as he looked down at the yearbook again, at Andrea. "Where living costs are lowest in Nevada, and CPS doesn't come around to check on kids often."

"Listen, you three," Arcee put in after a few second's silence, her voice breaking the contemplative quiet. "We wanted to know…if...if you receive the same treatment at home or not?"

_Beep-beep-beeeeep-bep-beeep?_

"Huh? Oh," a look of realization came across Raf's face as he looked up at the yellow scout. "No, Bumblebee. I don't."

_Beep-beeeep-bep?_

"Yeah, I did say that I can scream and no one'll hear me, but that stuff doesn't happen to me. I mean, my mom and dad both work and are busy taking care of my younger brothers and sisters. It gets loud in there with four kids younger than ten…that why I said no one hears me, and that's why I like being here better."

_Beep?_

"No, Bumblebee. They're good, they love me, they know I exist, they just have their hands full already and I decided to lessen their workload by looking after myself most of the time."

"What about you, Miko?"

"Bulk," Miko stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "I only got hit once. I was five, and I spit on the headmaster's dog because it wouldn't stop barking. If you ask me I think I should have been hit a few more times, especially that time I kicked a boy in twelfth year."

"Jack?" Arcee turned her blue optics to her human charge, everyone else following her lead. "I-I don't think your mom would do it, but appearances can be deceiving as we've all learned. Does your mom-"

"No." The oldest of the three children shook his hair out of his eyes and bit down on his lower lip. "My mom never had to do that. My dad left when I was two, and I think even then I knew how bad it was. All my teachers would tell my mom how well-behaved I was, how I didn't kick and scream and cry at the top of my lungs like all the other kids did. Even today they still do. I think I know how bad it's been for my mom and I just kept all my inclinations to misbehave and do all the things that other kids do so that way she doesn't worry about me."

"So, am I safe in assuming that your culture does not inflict such horrible treatment I witnessed to all if it's children?" Optimus's voice, authorative, and (they'd noticed the change since the arrival of Andromeda) very warm and almost motherly, reached their ears and audios.

"No."

"But," Jack continued after Miko, "it's not that uncommon. Sad as it is."

.-.-.

Andromeda stirred from her recharge a few minutes after the children went back to their movie, changing it when it was finished to _Serenity_. Optimus scooted closer to the other bots, not looking up when Ratchet entered the room and seated himself furthest from the Prime, and tried to shield the femmeling's optics from all the gun violence and the cannibalism of the Reavers. The infant cooed and tried to bring her servos up to move her carrier's servos out of the way so she could see, but Optimus only distracted her by offering her a feeding line. When she took the line into her mouth and started suckling the Prime smiled down at her and told her over their bond _::You're always hungry, aren't you?::_

The seekerling had developed far enough that she responded back to her carrier over their link with a sharp _::Chirp!::_

"_Take me with you!" _a man on the wall shouted, running towards the mule.

Mal turned around at the sound of the desperate voice, looking down, and pointed towards the depot as Zoe started heading away. _"Get back in the vault with the others!"_

"_I can't stay here, please!"_

"Buh-biss!"

Optimus smiled as Andromeda spoke adorable nonsense, nuzzling her helm with his cheekplate and whispering so no one else could hear over the sound of Mal shooting the Reaver captive and the _Serenity _crew hightailing back to the mothership, "I will never hurt you. You are the most precious gift I've ever been given. And each time I feel I am failing as a creator…I will think back to today."

The femme squirmed in his arms, sticking an arm up and almost jabbing her carrier in the chin, babbling excitedly and flicking her wing stubs up and down repeatedly.

"Optimus," Jack looked up from his phone that he had pulled out, waving it at the semi. "I texted my mom. She's going to call CPS tomorrow and see what they can do this time around."

"Thank you Jack."

Everyone watched in silence throughout the mule's runaway trek from the Reaver ship, flinching when a spear sliced clean through Jayne's leg and chuckling lightly as he screamed at Mal _"Well don't shoot me first!"_

Andromeda yawned again and stared up at her carrier with wide and sleepy optics. Optimus smiled down at her again (when didn't he smile at this little one?, he asked himself) and kissed her on the cheekplate before watching her fall into a deep recharge.

_I only hope that those children will someday find peace, _he wished towards Primus.

.-.-.

Jack didn't have the heart to tell Optimus the following week, when he stumbled into the kitchen in search of a bowl of Lucky Charms, about how he found his mother seated on a stool on the kitchen bar, her large eyes fixed on the television screen just a few feet from her.

"Mom?"

"Jack," June set down the mug of coffee she had placed to her lips. "It was too late…"

"What are you talking about mom?"

"Olive Miller drowned her kids in an inflatable pool, Jack. Just as CPS got there."

The boy looked at the screen, playing a short video taken the day before of the Miller's rundown trailer home just over Jasper's city limit. Two dogs, a pitbull and a mangy German Shepherd both very emaciated, barked aggressively at the male reporter and cameraperson filming the scene of the crime. The dirty lot was surrounded by yellow police tape flapping carelessly in the wind. Olive Miller's mugshot came up on the screen against a deep blue background, her eyes dark and unforgiving and unrepentant.

"Wait…even Andrea?"

June nodded, biting her lip and looking away from her son, blinking the tears from her eyes. "Even Andrea."

After Olive's picture came a set of seven pictures. Oldest to youngest.

Andrea Cora Miller. 12 years old.

Farrah Iris Miller. 8 years old.

Blake Alex Miller. 6 years old.

Twins Michael Jason and Mitchell Jackson Miller. 4 years old.

Quinn Bliss Miller. 2 years old.

Chanel Vera Miller. Two more weeks, and she would have been two months.

Mother and son sat in silence, Jack's quest for marshmallow cereal completely forgotten, staring at the television screen as the reporter told of the children's demise again, the half-a-million dollar bond the mother was facing, and what her expected plea would be. Not guilty.

"She shouldn't have been a mother," June commented softly before grabbing her purse and keys to head out for work. "She should have been tied at the first chance. Those children didn't do anything to deserve what happened to them."

Meanwhile the only thought in Jack's mind was _I hope Optimus has forgotten already._

.-.-.

The Prime hadn't.

He waited until the mourners left the cemetery, and scanned his immediate area until he was sure no one would stumble upon him in this corner of the out-of-the-way cemetery. It was just his luck that the Millers' tombstones were at the edge of the large plot. Seven simple tombstones paid for by donations, each one scrawled with just the name, date of birth, and the same death date.

Optimus kneeled in the grass next to Andrea's stone, making sure that he was not desecrating any other gravesites, and thought back to that day only a week ago. No one, no one knew it would have only been a week later that they would no longer be breathing, no longer looking forward to the haven of school, no longer walking this planet.

His only comfort was that now they were free of their mother.

"May Primus keep you all," he whispered to the wind that carried his voice away.

Another vehicle was heading his way. He reformatted himself into his alternate mode and sped off towards the base.

Now all he could do was make sure he never sunk that far towards Andromeda.

.-.-.

**I'm not entirely happy with how I ended this, as I had a different ending in mind (I'm actually not sure what it was anymore). But sadly this is a reality for many abused kids around the world.**

**I'm working on the immediate sequel to "Amnesiac", but again, there's no guarantee that it'll be up by a certain date.**


End file.
